The Forbidden City's calendar is coming to West Kowloon. Qing Court in Four Seasons: Life and Culture of the Imperial Household opens at the Hong Kong Palace Museum on 4 November 2026, tracing how Qing emperors shaped their daily lives around the rhythm of spring, summer, autumn and winter — through nearly 200 objects from the Palace Museum in Beijing.
In This Guide
What is Qing Court in Four Seasons?
Qing Court in Four Seasons: Life and Culture of the Imperial Household is a thematic exhibition jointly organised by the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) and the Palace Museum in Beijing, opening in Gallery 2 on 4 November 2026 (working title, subject to change). It uses the changing seasons as a curatorial framework, showing how Qing emperors synchronised their routines, ceremonies and leisure with the natural calendar.
The exhibition features nearly 200 exquisite objects spanning themes of agriculture, diplomacy, religion, hunting, and seasonal rituals and celebrations — giving visitors a structured way to understand what court life actually looked like across a full year, rather than a single static snapshot of imperial grandeur.
Building on Dawn to Dusk
The new show builds directly on the popularity of "From Dawn to Dusk: Life and Art in the Forbidden City," the HKPM's well-received exhibition on the daily rhythms of court life. Where that exhibition traced a single day, Qing Court in Four Seasons expands the lens to a full year, following the same curatorial instinct for turning imperial history into something visitors can relate to through everyday routine and ceremony.
It's one of nine new exhibitions across the HKPM's 2026 programme, joining shows such as "The Forbidden City and the World" in Gallery 1 and "Windows into Heaven", the Tretyakov Gallery collaboration opening in Gallery 9 just two weeks earlier.
Address, hours, tickets and getting there
Hong Kong Palace Museum — Qing Court in Four Seasons
The Hong Kong Palace Museum sits on the West Kowloon waterfront, a short walk from the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the West Kowloon Art Park — easy to pair with a wider afternoon in the cultural district.
Why visit this exhibition?
Most museum-goers picture the Forbidden City as a frozen backdrop of dragon robes and thrones. Qing Court in Four Seasons instead reframes the palace as a living, working household, with emperors adjusting diplomacy, hunting expeditions and religious observances to the calendar the same way any household plans around the seasons — just on an imperial scale.
If you're planning a wider museum day in West Kowloon, see our guides to Hong Kong's best museums and the HKPM's Joyful Encounters: The Art of Wong Kwan Shut, also on view this year in Gallery 6.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Year at the Forbidden City
Nearly 200 imperial treasures, organised season by season. Qing Court in Four Seasons opens 4 November 2026 at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.